If you have ever been tempted to download a film illegally, you will discover some issues you should understand. Foremost, you could be breaking the law, and your ISP can (and in many instances, will) give your personal information to the authorities. You can also be sued by the companies who own the film. While you might not think it likely, you can find several news stories available on Google of "casual" peer-to-peer downloaders being sued by huge corporations. You are also going for a big risk whenever you download movies from people you don't know. The files are extremely large, and also you would not notice a small virus file that your virus software doesn't catch. It's just not smart.

You will find now places in which you can legally download movies. You may rent or buy movies that you download directly to your computer. You'll find even places in which you can watch free movies online (click here). Right now, you will find only a handful of sites available, but as more movie companies and distributors move toward making their movies available as a means to prevent piracy losses, there will be more sites that allow you to rent or purchase downloadable movies.

Amazon has a program called "Amazon Unbox Video Downloads," which allows you to rent or purchase movies online and download them to your computer. You then play the movie on a special program that you download for free from Amazon. You may also download movies from Amazon directly to your compatible TiVo DVR unit or portable video player. You do not even have to wait as long while you would to illegally download a movie - you can start watching the film while it's still downloading. Purchased videos can be downloaded to more than one computer. You can only burn the film on a CD or DVD for backup purposes. You will not be able to play it in a DVD player, and you definitely will only be able to watch it on one of your registered computers. Rentals start at $2 and purchases start at about $10. You can find specials, coupons, and deals offered on a regular basis from Amazon for getting discounts on downloaded movies.

Movielink has an extremely similar program to Amazon. You download a program called Movielink Manager where you can organize and watch your rentals and purchases. Like Amazon, you can only burn CDs and DVDs to back up your movie. The DVDs will not play in DVD players. Movielink has ongoing specials including "surprise rentals" for $1 and frequent purchase discounts. Movielink will not work on Firefox, Opera, or Netscape browsers. You need to use Internet Explorer.

CinemaNow also features rentals and purchases. Furthermore, CinemaNow offers about 1200 streamed free movies that you may watch online. CinemaNow also features several movies that, when purchased, Can be burned to DVD to be played in DVD players.

You can find advantages to downloading movies as opposed to renting or buying DVDs. You don't have to be worried about losing or scratching a rental, late fees, driving to a shop, waiting for a DVD to be mailed to you, or getting the wrong movie. You also aren't required to be worried about scratching the DVDs you own or trying to get scratched DVDs to play with various sprays and machines. You can backup the films to be stored elsewhere so they don't take up space on your computer and they will not be lost in the event of hard drive failure.

If you make use of S-Video connectors, you can directly link a lot of PCs or laptops to your television and watch the films from Amazon, Movielink, and CinemaNow on your TV. There's also products from companies like X10 that let you broadcast from your PC or TV to other televisions within your home complete with remote control capabilities.